Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, announced on Tuesday that he will retire at the end of the year. In doing so, he made room for a potential Senate bid by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“I’ve always been a fighter,” Hatch, 83, said in a video statement. “I was an amateur boxer in my youth, and I brought that fighting spirit with me to Washington. But every good fighter knows when to hang up the gloves. And for me, that time is soon approaching.”

Shortly after Hatch’s announcement, Romney issued a short statement praising the Utah senator “for his more than 40 years of service to our great state and nation”. He did not address his own ambitions.

Hatch is the longest-serving Republican senator of all time, having represented Utah since 1977.Recently, he has faced competing pressures about his political future.

Donald Trump had lobbied him to run again, particularly after Hatch played an instrumental role as chairman of the Senate finance committee in crafting the overhaul of the US tax code, which was passed last month. Hatch was also a key player in the decision to shrink two Obama-era national monuments that Trump announced in Utah.

Later on Tuesday, Trump tweeted his congratulations “on an absolutely incredible career” and said Hatch had “been a tremendous supporter”.

“I will never forget the (beyond kind) statements he has made about me as president,” Trump wrote. “He is my friend and he will be greatly missed in the US Senate!”

Trump’s support has also been viewed as a move to stop Romney, who has privately expressed interest in Hatch’s seat, from declaring his candidacy. Hatch has been one of Trump’s most ardent defenders; Romney has been among the most vocal critics of Trump, as both candidate and president.

Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts but he is a Mormon and a Utah resident. He played a critical role in managing the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

A recent polled found that three in four Utahns thought Hatch should not seek an eighth term. A plurality expressed support for Romney taking his place.

Although Romney sought and secured Trump’s endorsement when he ran for the White House in 2012, the two engaged in a high-profile feud during the 2016 primary after Romney publicly urged his party not to nominate Trump. In a March 2016 speech, Romney called Trump “a phony” and “a fraud”.

The two briefly appeared willing to bury the hatchet after Trump won the presidency and considered Romney for secretary of state. Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone, however, said the president-elect had only interviewed Romney as payback, “in order to torture him”.

Romney has continued to be a critic. Last summer, after Trump blamed both sides for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in which a white supremacist drove his car into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring several, Romney called on the president to apologize.

“Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn,” Romney said.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at Tuesday’s briefing she had not spoken to the president about whether he would support any attempt by Romney to succeed Hatch in the Senate.

“The president certainly has the greatest and deepest amount of respect for Senator Hatch and his over four decades of experience in the Senate,” she said.

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Stephanie Clifford, the former porn star and stripper known professionally as Stormy Daniels, is suing President Donald Trump, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Per NBC News, she is claiming that the nondisclosure agreement he didn’t sign it:

The suit alleges that her agreement not to disclose her “intimate” relationship with Trump is not valid because while both Daniels and Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen signed it, Trump never did…

The “hush agreement,” as it’s called in the suit, refers to Trump throughout as David Dennison, and Clifford as Peggy Peterson. The side letter agreement reveals the true identities of the parties as Clifford and Trump.

Each document includes a blank where “DD” is supposed to sign, but neither blank is signed.

A second senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development has publicly criticised the secretary, Ben Carson, accusing him of leading a “witch-hunt” against some career bureaucrats in the department.

Marcus Smallwood told Carson in an email on Tuesday that Hud’s civil servants were working in fear after the demotion of his colleague Helen Foster and Carson’s rejection of her claims.

The Guardian revealed last week that Foster had alleged to a federal watchdog that she was reassigned to a lesser role in part because she refused to break a legal spending limit on the redecoration of Carson’s office in Washington. Her demotion is now being examined by the Republican-controlled House oversight committee.

“Helen Foster is not the only person at Hud that has been persecuted in this witch-hunt under your watch,” Smallwood, Hud’s director of records management, wrote in the email, which he shared with the Guardian.

“She is the only person who has been brave enough to stand on principle and put her career, reputation, and livelihood on the line. The rest of us have operated in fear.”

Raffi Williams, a spokesman for Hud, said: “Mr Smallwood’s email is under review.”

Smallwood accused Carson of smearing Foster as a liar by suggesting in a tweet that her allegation was unsubstantiated. In a Facebook post on Monday, Carson further complained without evidence that he had been the victim of “character attacks”.

“A week has gone by and it is now very clear that Helen Foster was not lying about the furniture purchases,” said Smallwood.

After Foster’s complaint was made public, it emerged that Hud had ordered a ,000 dining set for Carson’s office. Hud claimed the set was not subject to the ,000 limit Foster said she sought to uphold, because it was for the benefit of all staff. Carson later asked for the furniture order to be scrapped.

Smallwood asked Carson to make a public apology to Foster and to note “that all employees at Hud should feel free to follow the law, ask when they are unsure, and not fear retribution”.

The email on Tuesday, which was copied to several of Carson’s top deputies, alleged that Hud would probably be unable to comply with the House oversight committee’s request for all emails relating to Foster’s demotion “because there has been a concerted effort to stop email traffic regarding these matters”.

Williams, the Hud spokesman, denied there had been any halt to emails on the topic and said: “The House oversight committee will receive a complete response to their query.”

Smallwood also lent support to a separate allegation by Foster that politically sensitive requests made to the department under the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) were handled unusually.

Foster said that despite overseeing Foia requests for the department, she was sidelined when a pair of requests were made for emails including discussions of Donald Trump. She said she was told by a department lawyer that this was because she was perceived to be a Democrat.

Smallwood told Carson that “undue influence was placed on Helen, and myself to process FOIA request of a political nature in a fashion different from the normal process”.

Smallwood accused Carson and senior Hud managers of reprisals against not only Foster for blowing the whistle on the furniture spending, but also of letting important business go uncompleted due to the interdepartmental feud.

Dem lawmaker tears into Trump: ‘America will regret the day you were ever born’

Democrat Rep, Ruben Gallego (AR-07) tore into Trump last night on twitter for exploiting the Parkland massacre. Gallego, a former Marine who served in Iraq, was unusually blunt. Last year he called then president-elect Trump “mentally unstable”. Source: The Hill Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) tore into President Trump after the president suggested the FBI could have… (more…)